by Sadie Moss
I take a deep breath and comb through every corner of my mind, making sure Agustin isn’t hiding somewhere in wait, trying to infiltrate while my defenses are lowered. When I don’t sense him, I reach out for Asher’s power and renew all my shields. I feel some of Asher’s own making fall into place too, a double layer of protection I’m grateful as hell for right now.
With the inside of my head fully my own again, I glance at the guys gathered around me. “Okay. He’s gone.”
Justin’s shoulders actually slump in relief. Cam pulls me in and kisses my temple.
“What did he say?” Dmitri growls. “What did he want?”
I repeat the entire conversation I just had with Agustin. Asher must’ve been able to listen in, because he nods along as I speak, and he doesn’t seem as shocked as the others when I get to the end.
As soon as I tell them I’ve agreed to meet Agustin at Griffin Academy, Dmitri jumps to his feet, his whole body seeming to puff up with protective anger. “No! No way. You are not giving yourself to him.”
I look up at him and raise an eyebrow, kicking his foot lightly. “What makes you think I’m going to just go belly up? When have I ever tapped out of a fight, huh?”
“You have a plan?” Cam asks, his blue eyes shining with hope and worry.
“She has… half of a plan.” Asher shakes his head, gazing at me like he’s watching me skydive without a parachute and knows there’s nothing he can do to stop me.
The front door opens, and Roman enters—with Liam behind him. Both men look weary, like they’ve been at it for hours. I don’t know how much time passed while Agustin was in my head, but it definitely wasn’t that long.
That must’ve been a doozy of an argument between them.
Liam walks over and gives a heavy sigh. “Well. I’m still not sure I agree completely with your reasoning, Elliot. But there’s no use in my sitting around here while the rest of the world goes to shit. Only a matter of time until the shit comes knocking at my door.” He glances around at the group of us, a glimmer of fondness creeping into his hardened expression. “As you all have proved. So I’m with you. In whatever battle you find yourselves stuck in.”
I nod at him, trying to be gracious. “Thank you, Liam. It means a lot.”
Roman wears a triumphant expression, and I want to give him a chastising look, but he’s too damn sexy when he goes all commanding and alpha male like that.
“I’m going to be making an exchange,” I tell Liam and Roman. “Supposedly, it’s myself for Maddy. Maddy goes free, I go with Agustin, he uses me as his puppet to double his powers. He agreed to meet me at Griffin.”
Roman stiffens. He shakes his head and opens his mouth to argue, but before he can say anything, I hold up a hand.
“I have a plan. Well…” I glance at Asher, wrinkling my nose. “Half of one. Or rather, two parts of a plan that I really hope work together.”
Roman runs a hand over his jaw, looking worried but intrigued. “What are you thinking, Reckless?”
My pulse picks up. I’m simultaneously terrified and pleased that he’s willing to listen, to let me take the lead on this. It means he trusts me. But dear God, I hope I deserve that trust.
“Well, for the first part of my plan, I want us to reach out to as many Unpredictables as possible. Use Tamlin and Hardwick and the others to spread the word, and tell everyone to meet us on campus. We need as much backup as we can get when we face Agustin. And we know Griffin, all its ins and outs. It’s as good a place for a final stand as any, right?”
Roman nods sharply. “And every Unpredictable in the country knows where it is. It’s a good rallying point.” He gathers up his cell phone and the attached enchantment. “We’ll get as many people as we can.”
“Good. Tell them to hurry. The more time we have to prepare before Agustin arrives, the better. We need to hit him with everything we have for the second part of my plan to work.”
“What’s the second part of your plan?” Justin asks, looking like he’s not totally sure he wants to know the answer.
I hesitate for a second, but Asher, who’s already seen inside my head, gives me a small nod of encouragement.
Taking a deep breath, I lay it out for everyone.
It’s a dangerous plan. Maybe even a crazy plan. In fact, saying it out loud definitely makes it sound a little insane.
But it’s the only way I can think of to end this once and for all.
So it has to work.
Dmitri and I pack while Roman, Cam, and Asher work on getting into contact with all the other Unpredictables. In other words, we let the ones who are actually good with people do the talking.
Not that Roman’s an extrovert, but being a professor and having worked in the public spotlight for most of his life, he’s much better at it than, say, someone like me, who tends to get impatient and ask if everyone’s planning to remove their heads from their asses anytime soon.
This is why it’s a good thing the Trials livestream didn’t include interviews.
We get packed up with supplies—Liam’s got a few choice potions and charms and such that he wants to bring along, and frankly, I don’t even want to know what half of them do—and then we navigate our way out of the woods, avoiding the traps.
The grizzled older man is keeping those traps activated in case some interloper or annoying hikers decide to try to tromp through his woods while he’s gone.
Yikes. I really hope hikers stay away from this area, those poor folks.
The drive up to the Griffin campus is almost nice. Almost. Everyone’s very quiet, and my thoughts keep drifting to Maddy, but I get to curl up with each of my men in turn, and that helps. It’s almost a nine-hour trip, and with no time to stop at a motel and rest, we’re driving in shifts for once.
It makes me wish we were doing this for some other reason. A fun road trip, just the five of us, for no reason other than to see the sights and spend time together.
Maybe, hopefully, we’ll get to do that someday. When this is all over. If we’re still alive when this is all over.
There are so many ways this could go wrong, and the main way would be that I get taken over by Agustin and used as a puppet to kill everyone I love and take over the world with no willpower of my own for the rest of my life.
So, you know, no biggie.
I’m trying not to think about it. I’m trying to think only about victory. About getting Maddy back and punching Agustin through a wall. Positive thoughts, right? That’s how this works?
We roll up onto campus, which still has its protective wards in place. Everything’s still the way it was the day that we were all carted off by the Circuit to be taken to the holding facility.
I shiver involuntarily at the memory. God, that was an awful day. Everyone was terrified. Nobody knew what was happening to us, whether we’d be safe if we went along with the Circuit or if we were being marched off to get our magic ripped from us without even a second thought.
Liam scoffs at the wards as we all pile out of the two vehicles. “Clearly these need work,” he grunts.
I think I know what Liam’s going to be spending the rest of the day doing.
Justin looks around in curiosity, craning his neck to inspect the place. “So this is where you guys train?”
“Yup.”
“It doesn’t look anything like Neptune.”
“Neptune has a lot more students,” I explain. “And younger students too, and so it’s all set up more like a regular college. We’re very… haphazard, here.”
I thought Griffin was pretty odd when I first got here too. But now I love it. It feels like home.
“We need to check the area.” Roman steps forward, getting right down to business. “Figure out the best choke points, see where we can hide the students and other Unpredictables when they get here, strengthen the wards, maybe lay some traps…”
“There is no way we’re getting all of that done in the next twelve hours.” Dmitri grimaces.
“No, there isn’t,” Roman agrees. “But we can do as much as possible.”
As if his words were the starter pistol at a race, we all spring into action, getting to work as quickly as we can.
It’s eerie, being the only ones on campus. Especially with everything just left abandoned like it was. We had no chance to prepare for the Circuit coming, no chance to pack our things properly or get ready.
Asher, Dmitri, Justin, and I work our way through Wellwood Hall, raiding classrooms for charms and enchantments that might be useful and setting traps around the building.
Seeing the halls empty like this, with a few books and backpacks scattered around like corpses after battle, ghosts of what once was, creeps me out. It sends an odd chill up my spine, like we’re looking into another dimension. Liminal spaces, I think they’re called. When you’re somewhere that should be full of people but it’s not, your brain can’t handle it very well. Survival mechanism tells you that if there are no people here, it’s because they fled from danger, so you should flee the danger too.
Justin looks pretty creeped out too, but also fascinated.
“Growing up, we didn’t know a lot about Unpredictables,” he confides to me in a low voice as we enter the combat classroom. “It was kind of like having a cousin who was gay or something, you were just polite and didn’t talk about it. Then as I grew up and learned more about it, I thought it was wrong that we treated Unpredictables like something that should be swept under the rug.”
“Is anyone in your family Unpredictable?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No. I didn’t really know too many Unpredictables, just knew of them. I knew someone who knew one, you know what I mean? But we’re not going to get anywhere by pushing each other down. That just helps awful people like Agustin turn us against each other. It’s our job to support each other, lift each other up. There’s this saying, you know? That none of us are free until we’re all free. I really believe that.”
Okay, this guy is pretty much permanently on my good list.
“That means a lot to hear, Justin.” I clear my throat, willing myself not to cry as I talk about my sister. “I said this to Maddy too, and I know you don’t need my permission or my approval, but I’m glad you two found each other. You seem to make her happy.”
“She makes me happy,” Justin replies, a goofy smile spreading across his face. “She’s amazing. You helped raise a really incredible person. She’s just—yeah.” He looks completely besotted.
I grin at him. “Yeah. I get that.”
Maddy brings that out in people, and I’m not surprised her boyfriend turns into a dopey wreck just thinking about her.
Then he sobers up. “And we will get her back, right? I don’t like the idea of you… using yourself as bait like this, but…”
“I don’t like it either. I’d do anything for my sister, but I’m worried about this going sideways and people getting hurt and this asshole getting the best of us. We have to try though, and I really, truly believe this is our best chance.”
Justin looks at me for a long moment, then nods. He runs a hand through his hair and adjusts his glasses slightly, his brown eyes earnest behind the lenses. “You know, you’re Maddy’s hero. She believes in you, and I know if she were in my shoes, she’d believe that you were right and that you could pull this off. And if Maddy believes in you, then so do I.”
Goddamn it, maybe I am a hugger. Or my transition into full-blown sap is finally complete. I wrap my arms around his shoulders before I can stop myself, squeezing hard before letting go.
“Thanks, Justin.” I step back a little, giving us both a chance to get our shit together. “I appreciate that.”
Then I raise my voice so that the men who are on the other side of the large classroom can hear me. “Hey, guys, looks like we won’t have to kill him and hide the body after all!”
Asher smiles softly and flashes a thumbs up, and Dmitri gives a deadpan, “Yay.”
Justin looks like he’s torn between being actually kind of scared of us and amused at the joke.
We’re about to head toward the corner of the room where Tamlin stored the non-magical weapons—staffs and blades, and even crazy things like maces and axes—when a sound outside makes me jump. The others hear it too, and we all race toward the windows, leaning on the wide stone windowsills and pressing our faces to the glass.
A bus is pulling slowly up the road that curves around the quad.
My muscles tense, primed and ready for a fight, even though my logical mind knows that the twenty-four hours haven’t passed yet, and that Agustin is hardly likely to arrive by a damn bus. Not stylish and dramatic and impressive enough for him.
The bus pulls up in front of the school, and behind it, I see a pickup truck, and then a trailer, and then another bus. A wave of relief hits me so hard it practically knocks me over.
They came.
It’s the other Unpredictables, those that could get here in time anyway.
I hurl myself away from the window, sprinting out of the room and down the hall so fast that my feet skid on the stone floor. I pound down the steps and burst through the front doors with the guys right behind me.
The first bus’s doors open with a hydraulic hiss, and people start to file out, gathering on the quad. A flash of familiar red hair in the crowd catches my eye. Kendal.
“Hey!” I yell, waving my arms.
She rushes over and hugs me tightly, so much so that my feet lift off the ground for a moment. “We’ve all been so worried!” she says. “When we heard Agustin was after you specifically, we were so scared for you!”
“Jesus.” Tom shakes his head, walking over. “You just attract trouble everywhere you go, huh, Elliot?”
I can tell he’s teasing me, and I hug him too. “Thanks for coming, you guys.”
“Well, hey, it’s just a small thing, right?” He shrugs. “Not like all of our lives are at stake or anything.”
“You should see the public support you’re getting!” Kendal tells me. “Hardwick’s been campaigning like a madman, popping up to hold rallies and then going back underground again. And the Prince family and Tamlin’s family have been doing a ton of work rallying magic users to stand up to Agustin.”
My heart squeezes in my chest. I’m so fucking grateful that even after I destroyed their damn house, Asher’s family have stood by him, me, and all of us.
Other people are getting off the bus and climbing out of the other vehicles that drove up behind it. I recognize some of them from Griffin. But some I don’t. They’re completely new to me. Unpredictables who graduated from Griffin who knows how many years ago, who have come to take a stand at the place that maybe felt like home to them once too.
If nothing else, that’s something, isn’t it? All of us standing together? All of us saying that enough is enough, and that we’re going to deal with this rat who’s decided to play god?
Roman, Liam, and the other men start directing people immediately, dividing them into groups and telling them where to go. People are asked to sound off what their power is, and where their areas of magical and non-magical expertise lie. We can then put people into groups with powers that will boost or complement each other.
Asher’s been keeping my mind blocked from Agustin, and the key figures in our little resistance movement have all gotten ahold of enchantments or potions that protect their minds from invasion too. But there’s no way the madman hasn’t figured out something is up. There are too many people all headed to Griffin for him not to have gleaned it from someone’s mind by now.
That’s okay though. Because the people who know the full plan, the real plan, are protected from him. The secret is safe.
Agustin is justifiably confident in his insane amount of power, but whether or not he thinks he could take us all on by himself, I’m sure he’s bringing backup. We have to be ready for literally anything, including another demon army.
Tamlin and Brodie arrive a few minutes later, although I don’t g
et the chance to talk to them since I’m too busy helping organize people into pairs and groupings. I can’t help but notice that she and Brodie are standing very close to each other and seem to insist on working together for the battle.
I crack a grin. Guess the two of them worked through their, er, differences over the past few weeks.
It takes well into the night for us to have everything ready. My entire body feels like it’s buzzing with electric energy, and I can’t stop the clock ticking down in my head, reminding me of how little time we have left.
Asher sticks close to my side all night, maintaining my shields. Agustin wouldn’t know what honor was if it bit him in the nutsack, so we can’t discount the possibility that he might try to attack early and renege on our deal. I haven’t felt him so far, but that doesn’t really mean jack shit.
At last, we’re all good to go, and everyone hunkers down for what little sleep we can get. I end up in a classroom on the first floor, sandwiched between all four of my men, and I try to sleep because I know I’ll need it.
A part of me doesn’t want to though.
If we lose, this might be the last night I’ll ever have with them. I don’t want to waste that time sleeping.
But in the end, it doesn’t matter. I’m exhausted, and whether I like it or not, I fall into slumber.
I dream of Maddy, and of being her hero.
Chapter 22
Agustin’s a punctual bastard, I’ll give him that. He shows up right on time, as soon as the allotted twenty-four hours are up.
And just like I expected, he’s not alone.
My men and I are standing on the front steps of Wellwood Hall, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a line, when there’s a bright flash of light beyond the large metal entrance gate.
He comes in through a portal that he’s created just outside of the protective wards on the school grounds. Behind him, pouring out of the portal in what feels like a never-ending stream, come all kinds of demons and quite a few mages. I see a handful of Unpredictables, but it mostly seems to be regular magical users, no doubt equipped with charms and potions to enhance their powers.
